I'd felt we could be something.

Yes I liked your slanted features and you, my nose ring. But our bodies were ancillary, a nice side effect, a welcome addition, nothing more. The first time I saw you, I felt my stomach flip, your force field blazed and inside it and close to you was the only place I knew I should be. Common sense slid off me and cynicism understood what it was up against and dried itself up quickly.

Every syllable that dropped from your lips collected in a pool in my mind, not one anecdote lost, not one pause forgotten. I kept my gaze trained away because I don't know what falling in love is supposed to look like and I embarrass easily. Still there was a taut sense between us that physical touch would only dilute. The jokes got you at exactly the same time they got me, the other faces at the table blurred and the alcohol had only half to do with the night's intoxication.

Usually I have my game face on but I couldn't muster it this time. Because if ever there was someone who had to be shown what lay beneath, it had to be you. I'm not excessively clever, never read the classics and am not even alluringly damaged. I'm quiet not because I'm intense, I just don't know what to say. Truly, I have never had a sense of occasion and supposed-tos have been my particular failing.

And even while I'm trying to show you all of this, I know I'm being that guy who's telling a joke his audience has heard before and they're humouring him anyway. Because you do right? You know me already and I don't know how that could be. Scares me to the bone, too much time I have spent staring from safe distances and your nearness is closing up my windpipe and if I don't get out, I'll choke.